


Pathetic Cries for Attention

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-28
Updated: 2007-04-28
Packaged: 2019-05-20 10:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Mia does choose to join Jason. Eventually, Rose joins them.A series of ficlets written for Green Arrow 72 .





	Pathetic Cries for Attention

"These pathetic cries for attention? Really have to stop," Speedy informed Red Hood, who was, for the second time in a month, infecting her city.

"Don't be so rude, Archer-girl. I brought you a present." Red Hood threw a package in her direction, which she caught; after all, he'd had the chance to kill her once and hadn't. The package _probably_ wasn't explosive.

"So you send a girl presents _after_ you try to kill her?" Speedy asked, getting in a good kick, which infuriatingly, only made Red Hood laugh as he grabbed her leg and twisted her onto her back.

"I wasn't trying to kill you," Red Hood said, pinning her and leaning down, so that their faces were mere inches apart. "Only trying to have a bit of fun. It's a Robin-Speedy tradition."

Speedy struggled for a second and then managed to get in what she thought was a good groin-kick. Red Hood merely laughed again. "Really, Speedy, did you think I'd come to play and not wear protection?"

She ignored him, as well as the tingle that his voice sent over her skin with his innuendo. "Your head games won't work on me, Red Hood. I'm not naive enough to believe any of your bullshit."

"I know. That's why I brought the prezzie. It's harder to refute concrete evidence than the word of a sociopath," Red Hood let go and stood up. Speedy rose immediately, but he was already halfway off the roof by the time she got to her feet.

It was later, when she was alone in her room - Ollie and Dinah having gone off to look at wedding rings, Connor on a mission with Kyle - that she listened to the tapes Red Hood had brought her.

She didn't know how Red Hood had gotten the bugs into Ollie's office without him noticing them, and right now she didn't care. All she did care about was the sound of Ollie's distrust in her pouring from the speakers, as he made decisions about her life and signed away all the good he could have done as mayor, without so much as asking her opinion.

  
**Title/Prompt: Sight, Mia/Jason, Rating: PG-13**  
***************  
The sight that greeted Mia as she stepped out of the makeshift algebra classroom - their new school wouldn't be completed until the following year - was becoming an entirely too familiar one around Star City. At least his time, he'd skipped the hood part of his ridiculous get-up. When he only had the eyemask on, he looked almost civil. Actually, though Mia never would have admitted it to _anyone_ , he looked almost attractive. If he hadn't been evil, he would have been prime boyfriend material.

"Ollie had his reasons," she greeted, low and threateningly, coming to stand next to him. "Leave. Now."

"I'm sure Ollie had all the reasons in the world," Red Hood laughed. "Just like I'm sure he and all the other Arrows have a good reason for letting Tanner live, right?"

Mia's head hurt. It hadn't been a good month, and the doubts Red Hood had planted kept screaming in the back of her head, just the way she was _sure_ he had planned. So really, she was sure that under normal circumstances she would have been able to follow what Red Hood was talking about. Now? Not so much. "What does Tanner have to do with anything?" she demanded, because while what Ollie had done was pretty low, it wasn't in the same league as a child molester. "Tanner's in prison and has been for a very long time."

"Yeah, the funny thing about those multiple life sentences? If you know the right person, they can be revoked like _that_ ," Red Hood remarked, snapping his fingers. "And Tanner gets out of prison tomorrow. Apparently, he has some friends in very high places."

"I have to tell Ro--- Red Arrow," Mia decided, but her decision was cut off by an abrupt laugh.

"There's nothing _Roy_ can do, Archer-girl. Tanner's freedom looks entirely legal - not a thing Nightwing's Speedy can do about it. Except of course, take care of the problem. Which he already proved he's not willing to do, once."

"Red Arrow and the Justice League - "

"The _Justice League_ doesn't deal with child molesters, Archer-girl. Not worth their time, I guess. Even your mentor will tell you that." Red Hood shrugged. "Tanner walks free at noon tomorrow. I plan to be there to take care of him. Wanna tag along?"

  
**Title/Prompt: Open, Mia, Jason, Rating: PG-13**  
***************  
Speedy swore she only came with Red Hood to make sure that he didn't cross the line and kill someone. But on the way there, despite all she had been taught, she listened to Red Hood recite the litany of offenses Tanner had committed.

When noon arrived, those offenses - and the sound of the nightmares her niece had never quite gotten over - blocked out everything but a desire to see the bastard pay for his crimes. She wanted nothing more than to make sure he never hurt anyone ever again.

The prison gate swung open, and Tanner walked into the clear, taking his first free breaths in two years.

Two seconds later, Mia watched him fall to the ground.

  
**Title/Prompt: Hit, Mia, Jason, PG-13**  
***************  
She'd long since stopped being surprised when he stopped by on her patrol. She still told Ollie, like the good little sidekick that she was.

But only after Red Hood was far gone from her city. Not while she was there. . . which, she supposed, was proof she wasn't quite the good little sidekick she imagined herself to be.

"We're two of a kind, you and I, Archer-girl. You have to have figured that out by now," Red Hood taunted.

"Maybe, maybe not." Mia shrugged noncommittally and took aim with her bow, knocking out two would-be drug dealers with a non-fatal shot. Red Hood gave his typical headshake of disgust at her methods.

"Tell me you wouldn't have rather killed both of those scum, Archer-girl."

"We don't kill. That's what makes us different from scum like you."

" _We?_ Oh, that's right. Your infallible mentor and you, right?"

"I owe _everything_ to Ollie. If it weren't for him -"

"You'd still be a hooker. Yeah, I can do research with the best of 'em, Archer-girl. But it seems like to me, you merely traded one pimp for another."

The hit she gave him was well deserved, and Red Hood stood still long enough for her to deliver it.

  
**Title/Prompt: Dirty, Mia, Jason, Rating: R**  
***************  
A sewer. No place could have been more appropriate. The blood that was all over her hands and top of her costume wasn't nearly as nauseating as the liquid pooling at her ankles.

Vaguely, she recognized that she wasn't supposed to feel that way.

"Well, Archer-girl, this is a bit more serious than watching me kill someone and not stopping me. Whatever will the fairytale couple back home have to say about this?" Red Hood's voice was as amused as ever.

"They'll understand. It isn't as though they haven't. . ." Mia's voice trailed off, as she pictured trying to tell Ollie and Dinah what she had done. It was a conversation she could almost get through, she thought. But telling Connor. . .

Connor's indignation of Ollie's dealings with "that murderer," as he'd always referred to Natas, on the island rang loudly in her ears. She couldn't bear to imagine what he'd think of her.

  
**Prompt/Title: Wealth, Mia, Ollie, Dinah, Rating: PG-13**  
***************  
Mia shook Ollie's hand off her arm in disgust. "How can you just let him _go?_ " she shouted, not really caring that the entirety of the Star City Police Department was within hearing distance. "You know as well as I do that the bastard put the hit out on his wife."

"Yeah, and the cops know it too," Green Arrow acknowledged. "And trust me, there's nothing I'd like to do other than beat the ever loving shit out of him for it before locking him up for good."

Mia would have liked to do a lot worse than _beat_ the other man, who was currently not even bothering to fake remorse over his wife's death as he discussed the "harassment" he'd "unjustly" been receiving from the city's vigilantes.

"Mia." Black Canary's voice was low and so goddamn concerned that it only furthered Mia's anger. "Brooks covered all his tracks, and we can't touch him as it is."

"So, we let him go? Just because he's loaded and can afford the best scum and lawyers to do his dirty work?" Mia demanded. "That's a great moral system, Dinah."

" _Speedy,_ " Ollie growled, in a tone that normally would have offered no room for argument. "That's enough. We lie low, get all the evidence we can."

"And in the meantime, he just walks free," Mia snapped. "What the hell is the point of _any_ of this if we can't get the bad guys?"

"We'll get him," Black Canary assured her.

"The point is that sometimes you have to work with the system, or it will undermine your attempts to put people like Brooks away for good," Green Arrow lectured.

"Funny that _you_ should lecture anyone about working with the system," Mia muttered.

"Look, I don't know what's bugging you kid, but you have to pick your battles. You've been doing this long enough that you know how this works."

"Yeah, I do."

Which, conversely, was why Mia let the conversation drop. It was also why later that night, she used all her training to disable the very expensive security that Brooks had paid for - as surely as he'd paid for his wife's murder - and took care of a problem the "system" had proved incapable of taking care of.

She found it almost hilarious that of all nights he should have been in Star City, Red Hood was actually taking time out to bother Batman for a change.

But because she knew how "this" worked, she left her city behind, and went in search of someone who would actually understand what she had done, someone who would be as proud of her as she was of herself for taking care of the problem.

  
**Title/Prompt: Closed, Mia, Jason/Rose, Rating: PG-13**  
***************  
When Jason first brought Rose to the abandoned warehouse they were using as a headquarters, Mia closed her eyes, counted to ten, and tried very hard to ignore all the old battles that had taken place between the two of them. While they had been on opposite sides once. . . well, Mia wasn't Speedy anymore. None of those things mattered anymore.

"Ravager, this is Second String. Second String, I believe you've met Ravager before."

"Second String?" Rose Wilson laughed. "I get not wanting to be Speedy anymore, but 'Second String?'"

"Medieval archers used to carry a second string for their bow, in case the first one snapped," Mia answered, with a shrug, trying not to be jealous about the easy way Jason's hands slipped around Ravager's waist. "It seemed appropriate."

  
**Title/Prompt: Summer, Mia/Rose/Jason, Rating: R**  
***************  
Despite all bets to the contrary, and despite all the disappointments that had piled up against them leading up to the wedding date, Ollie and Dinah did have their perfect June wedding day. Dinah was every inch the beautiful bride that everyone expected her to be, Lian and Sin made adorable flower girls, and the flower arrangements were perfect.

Mia didn't attend the wedding, of course. She was three thousand miles away when the event actually took place. And she was glad of it; the temperatures of Star City that time of year had to make formal wear a royal pain in the ass.

Yet, when her new male partner, the one that had successfully replaced Ollie in all facets of her life, including some places that Ollie had never held, dropped the pictures of the wedding into her lap, it was the bridesmaids that held Mia's attention.

She'd almost been a bridesmaid. "How did you get these?" She asked Red Hood, who shrugged and threw himself down beside Rose on the bed opposite the one Mia was lying on in their hotel room. His head found its way into Rose's lap, and his hands found a knife to play with. Neither activity was an unfamiliar one.

That meant he wasn't going to tell her, and although Mia wondered what kind of contacts he had that would allow such close up shots of the wedding party, she didn't feel like arguing with him. Not over this.

It shouldn't have been worth arguing over. She'd left that life behind well over three months ago.

"You know from the look in the pic, the littlest Harper looks pretty pissed," Jason mentioned, as he casually traced the vulnerable spots of Ravager's armor with his knife. It wouldn't dent the costume any, all three of them knew that. It was nothing more than foreplay.

"She doesn't like dresses," Mia responded automatically about the little girl in white that had once called her "Aunt." Roy had probably tried to break that habit lately. After all, it was "Cheshire" around the Harper house, not "Mommy." Why should someone who didn't share her blood be an exception? "And she doesn't like Sin very much either."

"Ah, Familial Rivalry. Sounds familiar. Think we can get her to join us one day?" Jason asked, allowing Rose to take the knife from him.

"Lian could never be a castoff. She's loved too much," Mia answered, looking down at the smiling faces in the photographs. She wondered if they'd even missed her at all.

"So is that what our little group is going to be called? The Castoffs?" Jason scoffed.

"It's better than The Teen Titans, isn't it?" Rose taunted.

" _Anything_ is better than the Teen Titans," Jason retorted.

Mia shuffled through the photographs one last time before tossing them in the trash. She stood up and walked over to the bed, straddling Jay as she joined her partners. She rubbed her thighs against the roughness of Jason's jeans as she stretched up to kiss Rose on the mouth.

"Done reminiscing about the family?" Rose asked, removing her armor while Jason unfastened Mia's belt.

"There's nothing to reminisce about. I'm _with_ my family."

  
**Title/Prompt: Shoes, Mia/Rose/Jason, Rating: R**  
***************

Truth be told, Mia enjoyed shopping. It was a luxury she had never really enjoyed very often. There had been a few treasured trips to the mall with Dinah, which were no longer allowed to be pleasant memories, and the fewer still times she'd gone shopping with Cassie and Raven, which were even less pleasant memories.

Shopping with Rose was a different experience altogether. It was, as all things with Rose were, extremely difficult to get the white-haired girl to enjoy them. But, as all things with Rose, the end result was worth the effort.

"Those shoes don't go with that dress at all," Mia commented to the other girl as they stood in the dressing room of the ridiculously high-priced store that Mia would have felt out of place standing in back when she'd been a ward of Oliver Queen. The snotty saleswoman would have chased her away from the store if she'd approached it back during her street days.

So Mia was quite aware of just how uncomfortable she ought to feel standing in the changing stall. But standing next to her new partner, the only thing that made Mia uncomfortable were the tightness of the satin gloves and the cut of the ridiculous gown. When she was with Rose or Jason, she felt far more comfortable in her own skin than she ever had when she'd been in standing next to Ollie or Connor.

She wondered if it was that fact, or the fact that she felt comfortable doing whatever it took to eliminate the bad guys, that truly classified her as a "villain."

"That's probably because these shoes have giant dildos for heels," Rose responded, frowning at the image in the mirror. The dress really wasn't the most flattering, Mia supposed. But then, the only thing Mia thought that ever looked appropriate on Rose was Ravager's armor. Everything else looked entirely too. . .fake, somehow.

Outside of the dressing room, there was a soft "tsk" from the saleswoman, who apparently didn't approve of Rose's language. From the moment Mia heard the cluck of the saleswoman's tongue, she knew how things were going to play out.

"Sounds like our prim and proper sales bitch has a problem with either us or dildos," Rose remarked, arching a brow full of invitation towards Mia.

Mia shrugged. "Probably both."

"I say we give her something to be pissed about, then."

"Works for me."

As always, Rose initiated contact, but it was Mia who ended up pressing Rose against the wall of the stall with her hands pushing up the flimsy material of Rose's gown. And it was Mia who brought her partner to a shuddering, _noisy_ climax using a creative combination of fingers and heels.

When they were finished, they changed into their street clothes and paid for their purchases which included two ugly pairs of shoes and two similarly cut, overpriced dresses. The colors of the gowns were as predictable as their dressing room activities; one was blue, the other red.


End file.
